Is “upstate” an adverb, an adjective, or a noun?

From the Grammarphobia Blog comes an exploration of a word, as my students might say in their first drafts, that holds many meanings for different people in different places.

That word is upstate. In our local context and for many others, the word upstate is associated with two other words, New York. Don’t take my word for that usage; we’ve got a little book called the Oxford English Dictionary that tells us so.

Some people hate it when referring upstate to, oh, anything north of Westchester. For others it’s a useful term.

But let’s see how language mavens Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman address the issue. Here’s the first half of their answer to an awesomely wonky language question that never occurred to me.

Q: I claim the “in” is redundant and unpleasant to the ear in this sentence: “Senator Gillibrand was campaigning in upstate NY.” I am quite sure we could do without it, and would be better off without it.

A: There’s nothing wrong with that sentence. Here “upstate” is an adjective modifying “New York.” It’s used much like “northern” would be.

The word “upstate,” according to dictionaries, can be used as an adverb, an adjective, or a noun. Here are examples of each:

Adverb: “They drove upstate last weekend.”

Adjective: “They drove to upstate New York last weekend.”

Noun: “They came back Sunday night from upstate.”

So the writer of that sentence could correctly use either “campaigning in upstate New York” or “campaigning upstate.”

And by the way, the state in “upstate” doesn’t have to be New York. In fact, “upstate” doesn’t necessarily have to be up.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the adverb as meaning “in that part of a state which is (regarded as) higher than another, or is more remote from the chief centre. Freq. with reference to the State of New York.”

The adjective means “of, pertaining to, or characteristic of, an area upstate; situated upstate, rural; also, designating part of a State remote (esp. north) from a large city.”